This week the majority of my time has been spent playing the wonderful game of WordPress on PC. Countless hours have been ploughed into understanding the controls, getting to grips with unconventional tutorial system, and figuring out the ways to defeat the evil Cron. I’ve read a lot, I’ve learnt a lot, and I’ve restrained myself from throwing my laptop through the window. A lot. But I did it, I beat it and was rewarded with a working subscription service, so please feel free to sign up and validate the amount of swearing my cat has had to endure for the last 7 days!

Taking a relaxing break from World of WordPress, I played quite a bit of Loadout, a great third person free-to-play Steam game by Edge of Reality, and you can read much more about that in the review. Continuing to take advantage of the loyalty month that EA and Dice are throwing with Battlefield 4, half the COMO team got together and played some Conquest over the weekend. Mostly this resulted in getting shot a lot by people who seem to have no other interests (or in fact life) beyond flying jets from left to right in strafing runs. Yes, you’ve played long enough to get all the fancy weapons, and you can fly in a straight line low to the ground, kudos. But you are rather annoying. Still, we must have been doing something right for a change because Battlefield once again proved you don’t have to be the best marksman, pilot or driver to win, you only need to work as a team and secure your common objectives. This is what brings me back to this game, it’s fairness to it’s players that want to play. The only downside was that two of the team crashed out to the XMB in a crucial round, which stopped us from locking out the top three places on the leaderboard.

Lastly, I’m making steady progress through Tomb Raider, being very methodical (and anal) about my collectibles as I move from area to area. I’m more and more impressed with the Definitive Edition, and the 1080p, 60 fps performance should not be underestimated, it’s as smooth as silk and something you can’t help to notice. Absolutely loving the fact that Crystal Dynamics have breathed new life into a game that I thought I was done with after a single playthrough on the PlayStation 3. Top notch!

Highlights: MVP in Battlefield 4 for the first time (and probably the only…)

Lowlights: Learning about Unix coding explained at a level only our Prof. Kelvin Harris could understand.

This week I’ve been trounced in Tomb Raider, eaten and beaten in Don’t Starve, and blown up on the Battlefield. Still it’s been lovely to get some gaming in!

Taking advantage of the double XP weekend on Saturday, I joined Matt and Cev in a game which culminated in us dashing from objective to objective, racking up some cracking scores. It was an awesome display of teamwork with Matt as our designated driver, be it in a jeep, a tank or a chopper. Cev and I were engineers who’d debus as we reached the objective, to repair our vehicle and lay some mines. As soon as we’d secured the area, off we’d all go to the next one. Such fun. It’s not all good though as I would have been at the top of that leaderboard too, if it wasn’t for the repeated crashes; please DICE, sort it out!

The other thing worth mentioning is Clear Vision 3 from DPFlashes Studios. Clear Vision is Silent Scope with Stickmen and it’s available on iOS and Android. The first two sniping simulators were paid titles available for 69p each, but the latest instalment is free-to-play and introduces micro-transactions. The micro-transactions aren’t too intrusive at first, but you soon realise that there are a few high-paying missions which are only available if you splash some cash. Without these missions earning cash to upgrade weapons is a bit of a grind, but the introduction of jobs which pay a paltry sum and more profitable crimes, will help you along your way; watch out you don’t bungle that burglary though, as there’s a cooldown period if you do. Upgrading weapons is essential in Clear Vision 3, far more so than previous games. As the levels progress, shots get tougher and a fog of war starts to envelop your scope; by upgrading the power of your weapon and range of your scope, you can overcome this adversity and pop melons to your heart’s content.

Highlights: Taking out two people passing each other on a bridge, with one bullet.

Lowlights: Fumbling a rock repeatedly during a ruby heist, locking down my game for hours on end!

This week I was prepared to sit and burn through Outlast, something which I did in the end but sadly, I overestimated it’s length. I thoroughly enjoyed it, make no mistake about that but here’s the review. Take from it what you will.

In light of that I still had a lot of free time and thus decided to invest it in Dark Souls and Battlefield 4.

In preparation for Dark Souls 2, I took on the task of seeing Dark Souls through to the end and, while I was aware that’s no simple feat, I’m quickly realizing exactly how far from easy that is going to be. I’m currently in Anor Londo, in the large hallway where you invade the world to avenge the…firekeeper? You know the dead chick down under Firelink Shrine who buffs your estus flask, yea. I’m there. I’ve only taken one stab at it thus far, without summoning, and there’s little chance I’m going to be able to solo three fast moving and varied guys. I’ll have to return to it soon with a little more balance thrown into the mix.

The reason that has taken a seat on the backburner is because I’ve finally found my calling in BF4 as an engineer. I’ll be open about this. I’ve not played BF since 2 and even then I didn’t play a lot. No Bad Company, No BF3, admittedly I did play a little Battlefield Heroes but that’s about as Battlefield as Beautiful Katamari is Tekken.

So, I’m a total noob. I couldn’t take offense to that simply under the premise that…well, it’s true! But this week I began to come into my stride. Ditching the assault class for it’s medpacks that I once desperately couldn’t step onto the field without. No more running at every minor injury to huddle up in the corner like a dunce chomping on medicine and hoping that sheer force of will would increase my health regen rate. But then it hit me, who needs eternal life when you can have a rocket launcher. If I can’t be a defiant, immortal paragon of eternal resilience, I’ll be a beacon of death and feared by every tank, boat, helicopter and gunship on this whole bloody pile of virtual corpses!

Highlights: Learning how to make the skyscraper in Shanghai crumble to floor.

The last few weeks have been rather light on gaming for me, and this last week I have made up for some lost time and made a large dent on my to do list. A large majority of my free time was once again spent in the world of Dark Souls. Heads up all, I will be heading down a Dark Soul rabbit trail for a while so if you have no interest in it, skip to the next paragraph. I teamed up with two friends and we cleared Anor Londo. While there is much to be said about the satisfaction and enjoyment of completing Dark Souls solo, there is no doubt that the developers clearly intended others to play with you and I have found it to be very rewarding. I also spent some time cleaning up all of things I missed or was unable to do coop. In a few hours I chipped away at several things that I needed to do, including, but not limited to: Defeating Lautrec and avenging the fire keeper at Firelink Shrine, defeating the Red Dragon, defeating Havel, unlocking the new DLC, defeating the Stray Demon, lowering the water level in New Londo Ruins, collecting two more fire keeper souls so I could upgrade my Estes Flask to +3, and gathering the Very Large Ember and Titanite Slab to max out my Unchigatana at +15. Phwew. I think that was all.

You didn’t skip my Dark Souls bit did you? Good. PS3 dominated most of my gaming time and on it I also played Brother: A Tale of Two Sons. I have not finished it yet and although I like the concept and story so far, the controls are not fun. You have to control each of the brothers with separate sticks and brains were just not made to work that way, well not mine anyways. I downloaded Far Cry Classic which is a HD version of the original 2004 game on PC. Two things immediately came to mind when I started playing: Wow this is hard, and wow that is horrid voice acting. I hope to give it more time and form a stronger opinion, but one of the things that helped Far Cry’s difficulty be more manageable was the precise mouse controls. This of course is absent on PS3 and I feel the Dual Shock 3 is just too inaccurate for this type of game, but time shall tell.

Vita was also used a lot this week, with TxK topping the charts of most fun and most played. If you would like to know about this arcade shooter check out our review here. The only other thing I dabbled in was Smart As, which is a puzzle game that challenges you daily with a variety of topics from logic to arithmetic. With John Cleese serving as the whimsical in game narrator, Smart As is a funny game that helps challenge your mind and compare your success, or failure to that of your friends and the rest of the world. So that finishes this week up, until next time!

Highlights: Having John Cleese ask if I was a male or female, and offering me a minute or two in case I needed to check.

Lowlights: Finding out that after drinking I have a “Brain Score” of 56%… Ouch.

That’s it from our team for this week, why not let us know what you’ve been playing in the comments?